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Abstract

The novel organizational form of self-managing organization (SMO), which radically decentralizes decision authority throughout the organization, is frequently considered one approach to face the challenges in the knowledge-driven, volatile, uncertain, complex business environment of the 21st century. Besides increased business capabilities, the concept promises to benefit the employees and satisfy their needs for more purposeful work, thus being a more sustainable alternative to conventionally-managed, bureaucratic organizations. So far, the literature has considered SMOs only on a theoretical or case study level, focusing on organizational processes and outcomes. The individual stance has been neglected so far, which is problematic because the individual employees have a particularly relevant position for the functioning of self-managing systems, as the SMOs' core concept is distributing decision authority among all employees. Therefore, this work investigated the resulting consequences and demands for employees in SMOs. This work analyzed the potential SMO-related change in the job characteristic autonomy, how it relates to the quality of work life, and which competencies employees need to thrive in SMOs. The current work included four studies: a systematic literature review, a qualitative interview study, and two quantitative cross-sectional survey studies. The literature review considered 84 studies of self-managing teams (SMTs). The qualitative study relied on critical incidents and concept mapping and considered a sample of SMO employees within the DACH region. The quantitative studies relied on data from employees who worked for an SMO and employees who worked for other organizations, which was analyzed using different types of regression analyses, path modeling, and group comparisons. The results showed that individual autonomy, work engagement, and job satisfaction were higher in SMOs compared to other organizations. The identified competencies in SMOs showed similarities and differences with those of SMTs. The competencies for SMOs revealed a stronger focus on self-leadership and entrepreneurial competencies. Additionally, person-environment fit (P-E fit) regarding autonomy was related to work engagement and emotional exhaustion in SMOs. Aspects of error orientation were higher in SMOs and partially moderated the relationship between autonomy and job crafting/work engagement. Job crafting was higher in SMOs but not related to P-E fit. Only when strain from errors was low was high autonomy related to increasing social resources. Extraversion, openness, and low neuroticism were positively related to desired autonomy. Neuroticism and extraversion moderated the relationship between decision autonomy and work engagement. Conclusively, job characteristics like job autonomy seem to be affected by the organizational changes in SMOs. The match with the ideal level of job autonomy is important beyond the absolute level. The results also showed that other competencies and behaviors, such as self-leadership or self-responsibility, were necessary for SMOs, even compared to SMTs. That supports the notion that SMOs differ in their requirements for employees compared to incremental approaches to decentralizing authority. Consequently, as job characteristics change and different competencies are required, employees should be supported in transition phases or when joining an SMO. Therefore, hiring criteria, personnel and organizational development initiatives should consider the identified competencies and changed job characteristics. Strengthening error orientation in terms of developing a more constructive view of errors may also help improve when incremental approaches to hierarchy reduction are pursued. The findings can also inform practitioners in incremental approaches toward authority decentralization as corner cases help understand mechanisms that are not as salient in incremental approaches. Based on these findings, other job characteristics can be investigated in future research.